The damp chill was seeping through his whole body; he had shouted himself hoarse. Now, if he had to die he’d do it with Roman dignity. He huddled a fold of his blood-soaked cloak around his face, then, his heart pounding wildly, dragged himself upright; for he had heard voices.
Gaius put all his failing strength into a cry – half shriek, half howl; he was ashamed of the inhuman sound moments after it left his throat, and he struggled to add some more human plea, but nothing would come. He clutched at one of the stakes, but managed only to pull himself to his knee and lean against the dirt wall.
For a moment a last ray of sunlight blinded him. He blinked, and saw a girl’s head framed in light above him.
“Great Mother!” she cried out in a clear voice. “How in the name of any god did you manage to fall down there? Did you not see the warning marks they put on the trees?”
Gaius could not manage a word; the young woman had addressed him in an exceptionally pure dialect that was not altogether familiar. Of course, they would be Ordovici tribesmen here. He had to think a moment to turn it into the Silure patois of his mother.
Before he could answer, a second feminine voice, this one richer and somehow stronger, exclaimed, “Lack-wit, we ought to leave him there for wolf bait!” Another face appeared beside the first one, so like it that for a moment he wondered if his vision was playing tricks on him.
“Here, grab my hand and I think, between the two of us, we can get you out,” she said. “Eilan, help me!” A woman’s hand, slender and white; reached down to him; Gaius put up his serviceable hand, but could not close it. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” the girl asked more gently.
Before Gaius could answer, the other – Gaius could see nothing about her except that she was young – bent over to see for herself.
“Oh, I see now – Dieda, he is bleeding! Run and bring Cynric to pull him out of there.”
Relief washed over Gaius so powerfully that consciousness nearly left him, and he slumped back down, whimpering as the movement jarred his wounds.
“You must not faint,” came the clear voice above him. “Let my words be a rope to bind you to life, do you hear?”
“I hear you,” he whispered. “Keep talking to me.”
Perhaps it was because rescue was coming that he could allow himself to feel, but his wounds were beginning to hurt very badly. Gaius could hear the girl’s voice above him, though the words no longer made sense to him. They rippled like the murmur of a stream, bearing his mind beyond the pain. The world darkened; Gaius realized that it was daylight and not his sight that had failed him only when he saw the flicker of torchlight on the trees.
The girl’s face disappeared and he heard her call, “Father, there’s a man caught in the old boar pit.”
“We’ll get him out then,” a deeper voice replied. “Hmm . . .” Gaius sensed movement above him. “This seems a job for a stretcher. Cynric, you had better go down and see.”
The next moment a young man had scrambled down the sides of the pit. He looked Gaius over and asked pleasantly, “What were you thinking about? It must take real wit to fall in there when everyone around knows it’s been there thirty years!”
Mustering the scraps of his pride, Gaius started to say that if the fellow got him out he would be fitly rewarded, then was glad he had not spoken. As his eyes gradually adjusted to the torchlight, the young Roman realized that his rescuer was about his own age, not much over eighteen, but he was a young giant of a man. His fair hair curled loosely about his shoulders, and his face, still beardless, looked as gay and calm as if rescuing half-dead strangers was all in a day’s work. He wore a tunic of checked cloth and trews of finely dyed leather; his embroidered wool cloak was fastened with a gold pin bearing a stylized raven done in red enamel. These were the clothes of a man of noble house, but not one of those who welcomed their conquerors and aped the manners of Rome.